Studio Art Potential Directions

    In Studio Art unit three I have three potential directions that I could explore further and use for my final end of year artwork.  One of these potential directions I have explored and completely immersed my self in all aspects of capturing the artwork.  I have set myself goals and planned out many more potential directions and explorations I can get from this one direction.  The other two directions I explored and documented were both very promising and interesting, but had a few aspects that put me off going further into the exploration process with them.  Last year I did water droplet photography and really enjoyed being able to have a constant setup in my house that I could work with at all hours of the day.

Last years Studio Art

I want to continue with this style of working, but unlike last year, learn more about the individual components of the setup and how they work and effect each other.  For all of my studio art work I am basing my art around photography.  Even though I am specifically sticking to photography I incorporate many other mediums and techniques.

My first potential direction is based around the idea of losing gravity or flipping gravity on earth and photographing objects and scenes as the gravity change takes effect.  Photographing this was great fun.  I chose locations that had objects that I was able to throw into the air and photograph to get the impression they were floating away.  For my first test I chose a room that had very even lighting and no shadows that would cause problems in editing.  The room was large and I threw tables and chairs with the help of some friends.  I captured multiple images of each object in the air and then cut all of the chairs and tables out of the background in Adobe Photoshop with layer masks and merged them all onto an image of the room but empty of all objects.  The final image was very pleasing and did show the effect that the gravity had been shifted.  The only negative of the image was that there were no shadows cast by the tables and chairs.  It did make it a lot easier to edit and put together the photo in Photoshop, but without shadow it lost most of its depth causing the image to not be as realistic as it could have been.

First No Gravity Test No Shadows

I chose to do a second test that would use shadows and create that depth and polish the image to make it 100% realistic.  For the second test I decided on going small scale and using my desk and books, pens and other desk objects. I used the same process as from the first test, but brushed the shadow back into the image with layer masks after everything was aligned and masked.  Making the shadows look consistent throughout the image and not interfere with the other objects was a lot harder and took a lot longer to complete.  The final image was good, but lacked the consistency of the shadows throughout the image.  Overall I really want to continue with this idea, but it is too time consuming, boring to edit, hard to capture the single images and I would need other people to help me to either take the photos or throw the objects which is not ideal.

Second No Gravity Test With Shadows

My second potential direct is whole new set of challenges that in the end are a little more boring.  I chose to try out landscape photography.  Specifically panoramas and photos of buildings or the city at night.  I had the opportunity to go out to a location that looked down upon the city and was perfect to test out some bokeh ideas I had thought of.  I changed the focus half way through an exposure to create bokeh over the image.  I also moved the camera up or down to position the bokeh or in focus city where I wanted it in the frame.  The final photos where interesting and showed that the process worked and had potential, but getting to locations and late nights in the cold aren’t very fun.

Panorama and Focus Shift

For my third potential direction and the one that I am continuing on with to create a final piece I am using sound to create paint sculptures.  I am using a speaker with a membrane over the top that transmits the sound and change of air pressure into movement that makes the paint jump and dance.  Every photo is different and every combination of colours makes a different patterns.  Creating paint sculptures is amazing fun but incredibly difficult.  There are so many variables that have to be considered before a single photo is taken.  Some of the variables include: sound: hertz, harmonics, amplitude, duration; the speaker: size, maximum decibel, ohm, watts, amp, maximum and minimum air pressure; speaker membrane: size, thickness, colour, translucency; paint mixture: dilution, position on speaker, colour, paint position, layers of paint; lighting: flash duration, position, delay, amount of flashes, light intensity, diffusion, ambient light; background, colour, placement; camera settings: aperture, shutter speed, iso, focal length, sensor size and then how to control all of the flying paint and mess.  All of these have a large effect on how the photo will turn out.  The photos turn out very surreal in the way that  the scale of the paint is lost.

Paint Sculpture Setup

I am aiming to capture a series of photos some that don’t show the size of the images with a very clean perfect look and others that have been taken at locations with a wide view showing parts of the setup as well as the landscape around. I will do this through a similar process as to creating a HDR (high dynamic range) image and use of shadows and light cutting.  Another photo that I want to capture is of a person holding a large speaker of 12” or bigger size.  The photo will be of the person holding the speaker with a large paint sculpture exploding up in front with the person watching the paint.

One of my First Paint Sculptures

The reason I have chosen this direction is because it enables me not to just learn new photography techniques but also sound engineering techniques and technologies, paint viscosities, colours and lots of other things.  This potential direction is not just one direction, but many, I have already had hundreds of potential directions that I could choose to follow to make new and interesting artworks by using paint sculptures.